Episode 166: Am I Bringing My Best Self Home?

The dangers of polarisation in different life areas

How are you showing up over the areas of your life? Does your business, job, career consistently get the best of you? If you end up over time giving all your energy, focus, attention, empathy and patience to your work environment then what comes home?

Whilst listening to an episode of Esther Perel's podcast series How's Work, she mentioned the idea of work getting Best Self and home getting Worse Self or something to that effect. This to me fitted alongside the idea of Over Functioning at work and Under Functioning at home, just a different angle. I highly recommend both Esther's podcast series by the way!

Even the most healthy personal relationships experience ups and downs. This means that we need to be mindful about what our personal life and those in it are getting from us. Home should be a place to rest, renew and drop the public persona. If however that is all we end up doing there then chances are things are going to decline.

A certain amount of time, energy, joy and enthusiasm needs to be invested in a life area if we want it to continue to thrive. This episode looks at the danger of becoming polarised in how we show up in certain life areas. This area to me can be a real blindspot for some and I hope this episode helps.

Episode 163: Focusing On Others To Avoid Focusing On Self

How can we spend more time being present for self and less in other people's business?

One way to stay out of the anxiety of dealing with self is to spend all our time focusing on what others should be doing. If I am always fixated on how to help others then I get to avoid dealing with my issues.

In Robin Norwood's excellent book Women Who Love To Much, she makes reference to the sunny side of control: “I will manage my anxiety by rescuing you, advising you and doing for you.” This can come with a great deal of approval from others and we get to look good. Whilst we may look good and get approval we may also be causing others to under function because we are doing for them what they actually could do for themselves.

It can be challenging to watch others engage in areas of life that we are convinced we have a better way for them. We may feel that it is just easier and quicker to do it for them. This addresses the immediate stress but creates more in the long run.

Many people who are chronic rescuers find that whilst they have all the answers for how others should live, they are baffled when it comes to themselves. It is important to take back self-focus, attend to one's own experience and tune into one's own emotional space and stick with it even if at first it is anxiety-provoking.

Episode 162: The Importance Of Emotional Attunement In Relationships

How presence & awareness creates healthy relationships

There are a number of factors that would appear to boost the chances of having a relationship that continues to be healthy and successful over time. One such element is the degree to which you continue to be aware of your partner's emotional experience. The longer we stay together the more likely that we will both change, grow and develop whether we intend to or not. The person you started in relationship with may not be exactly who you experience today.

It is vital that we continue to invest interest and time into our partner. The more awareness and presence we can bring means we can avoid stumbling into relational blowups and being baffled as to "how did we get here?"

Emotional attunement also allows us to put the brakes on when the challenging discussion is escalating into real damage to the relationship territory. It allows us to see when our partner is beginning their repair attempts and wanting to move back into relational harmony. It allows us to continue to be present for the moments of true love and intimacy.

Episode 161: How Distance Damages Relationships

Protecting your relationship by enhancing closeness

There are so many distractions and responsibilities these days! One of the consequences is that, over time and often out of our awareness, we start to drift from our partner. Distance grows over time and connection can start to fade. This can mean that when inevitable challenges appear at our door or appear at the doors of those close to us, the relationship really experiences strain.

Having fundamental positive regard for our partner, a genuine friendship with them is seen as one of the most base elements of long term successful relationships and weathering effectively life challenges. However, if we aren't spending time together focused on continuing to really know one another then we can be weakening our relationship even though that is absolutely not what we wanted.

This episode looks at how important it is to not get too far apart from one another for too long unless we want to risk losing our relationship over time.

Episode 160: Right For The Argument and Wrong For The Relationship

How to have healthy, relationship affirming disagreements

Sometimes we can get so focused on being right in an argument and snowing someone else with the undeniability of our rational position that we forget to be mindful of their experience.

If you have ever had the experience of being intellectually trampled so to speak by someone in a conflict or negotiation situation and how that left you feeling, you will know what I mean. How willing are you to want to engage again with that person if another situation of challenge arises?

The really good negotiators and conflict specialists focus not only on the challenge at present but also on affirming the relationships between parties so that we will be willing to fight again on another day.

Disagreement isn't unhealthy and can even promote deeper understanding, intimacy and effective solutions. How we disagree and how we leave each other feeling can mean I win now but lose later. This can be especially true if as a result of confrontation with me, you refuse to want to engage again or hold back on crucial information going forward because I am now perceived as too unpleasant to deal with.

This episode looks at some of these aspects and being mindful of relationships.

Episode 154: Tough Conversations To Preserve Our Relationship

Embracing challenging topics for better relationship health

If we are serious about having long term healthy relationships then we need to be able to have potentially challenging conversations. Even the most successful relationships are faced from time to time with anxiety, stress and temptation. Life has a way of sometimes making our best-laid plans and ideas look trivial.

As a couple, can we commit to being willing to work on our fight form? How as a couple do we improve bringing up the topics that are tough and risk a heated exchange? Can we work as a team on how we could have handled that last argument better? Are there daily tasks that are a source of irritation that we are trying to ignore? How long can we ignore those daily irritations before they build into a major explosion in the relationship that is way harder to work through?

This episode explores some of these questions and more.

Episode 152: Seeing Both Sides of Relationship Patterns - Part III

The unforeseen consequences of emotional cutoff

This episode focuses on an aspect of relating patterns known as Emotional Cutoff. When we choose or feel forced to cut someone out of our lives. There are times to go low or no contact of course, and with certain more low conscious types, it’s probably important.

However, when we cut someone out of our lives or refuse any contact it might reduce the immediate sense of anxiousness but add to long term friction. We may not talk to someone for months and then reunite without addressing the original issue, or we may geographically distance but still find that we mentally obsess over the person even though we don't see or speak with them directly.

This episode explores a number of elements and potential consequences of emotional cutoff.

Episode 151: Seeing Both Sides Of Relationship Patterns - Part II

Taking accountability for our contributions to relational stress

Continuing on with exploring how we do us in relating and in particular what is my contribution to us? Spotting one's own contribution particularly when relational anxiety is up, isn't always easy.

We can become aware of how seemingly emotionally reactive our partner is whilst not being tuned into how we are coming across. We can become critical and focused on point-scoring at the expense of the relationship’s overall health. We can focus on what our partner needs to do rather than on what I need to do.

In times of relational harmony, have we taken the time as a couple to agree to the guidelines of how specifically we will argue? Importantly if we have, then under pressure do we adhere to them or feel we are justified to break the rules we set up.

Can we step away if things are amplifying unproductively and just as importantly finish challenging discussions later rather than sweep them under the carpet?

Episode 150: Seeing Both Sides Of Relationship Patterns - Part I

Challenging automatic patterns of blame in relationships

Generally, when you listen to couples going through relational challenges you can hear a fixation on their partner's present shortfalls or an over fixation on their own while their partner is faultless.

We can overly blame other or overly blame self but any attempt to adjust in a relationship from that limited focus alone is likely to only (at best) temporarily relieve relational stress. Short term, emotionally reactive adjustments that are designed to get back to momentary relational calm can be actually building to long term relational strain and distance.

This episode looks at one of the automatic patterns utilised by couples to manage intimacy, closeness, anxiety and general family system pressure. If we can observe relating patterns and label them then we are at a choice point about what, if anything, we would like to do. Can I clearly see my part and your part in this dynamic from a calm position?

It takes two to engage in a relational pattern and often a host of supporting others. This episode pattern of relating is focused on over-functioning and under-functioning in relationship. I hope you find it helpful!

Episode 148: You Should Really Know What I Need

How assuming your partner is a mind reader affects communication

The idea that the more we love someone the more skilled at mind reading we become causes more problems than it solves!

"You should know what I need if you really loved me!" This isn't helpful and in part stems from childhood where it was our parent's job to interpret our requirements. Depending on your family system that often didn't work so well either!

Healthy dynamics involve communication and willingness to clarify. As we grow and mature our needs change and also how specifically our needs get met.

It is fantasy to think that even with the best fit person for you, that they will magically always be in alignment with you and one step ahead of your requirements. Something of that nature is probably closer to unhealthy enmeshment than to separate adults willingly forming a relationship together and continuing to commit to the relationship as it evolves over time.

This episode looks at how the mind-reading assumptions that can appear in relationship dynamics get in the way of healthy relationship communication.

Episode 147: Toxic Relating and Dynamics of Polarity

The impact of extreme relating polarities on our wellbeing

One indicator that you may need to access the kind of relationship you are in is seemingly radical relating swings. The relationship brings you both the highest highs and lowest lows. How can someone treat me so well one moment and so horribly the next?

When they are good and showering us with attention it feels amazing and then when they withdraw and freeze us out it feels like such a lonely and desolate place.

How can one person be so charming and then so hateful? The confusion that ensues can engulf us and keep our attention distracted from the fact that they say all the right things and do none of them!

This episode looks at the emotional roller coaster effect of these radical swings in relating and their potential impact on our well being.

Episode 146: Looking At Lopsided Relationship Dynamics

How couples fall into relational imbalance

I am fascinated by patterns of relating that we fall into in relationship especially with the passing of time. Some of these patterns promote intimacy, closeness and desire.

Others patterns, if left unattended over time, can leave our relationship vulnerable. We can be in a relationship and yet feel frustrated, lonely and unsupported.

In this episode, we look at how couples can slowly fall into the trap of being overly focused in one area of relational life (eg: career) and expecting our partner will cover off the other areas (eg: keeping up with family commitments). It is wonderful to work as a team and be responsible for different areas if that is agreed upon. However when this tips into becoming, for example, overly responsible at work and yet having no idea about the day to day running of the family home then we may have taken things too far. This means that consequences are likely to start appearing over time such as feeling like an outsider in your own home.

Episode 145: Observing Anxiety Dynamics In Relationship

Challenging automatic responses to create healthier relating

When anxiety rises in the relationship, each person’s automatic anxiety management patterns start to get easier to see.

One member of the relationship starts to go into fix-it mode and the other starts to shut down.

Perhaps instead of talking to each other about the present points of friction, we start to complain to third parties. It may become so predictable that you already know who your partner will go to first to complain about you to. On the flip side, they probably know who your first go-to person is to.

If we have children together then we may find that to distract from the growing distance and tension we become overly involved in our children's lives.

This episode looks at some of these autopilot patterns for the purpose of giving us more clarity and control in continuing to work towards healthier relating.

This episode draws from some Bowen Family Systems theory and in particular Bowen Family Systems author Roberta M. Gilbert. I would certainly recommend her work when seeking to have a better understanding of the patterns that drive our relationships and family system.

Episode 143: Emotional Affairs and Relationship Neglect

Prioritising sharing with our partner to avoid threatening the relationship

When we first get into a relationship the conversational exchanges can be highly invigorating, fascinating and rewarding! Over time, however, they can become less so, if we don't continue to make them a priority.

We can benefit from meaningful exchanges with multiple others so that the burden of our emotional well being is not placed squarely in the hands of our partner. However, if we begin to find that conversations of significance are progressively being had with a person or persons other than our partner, then this could be a red flag.

Am I continuing to make time to share with my partner things that are significant to me and continuing to invite them to share with me? So many distractions, social media and vigorous workplace exchange can over time make me neglectful of remaining present to my relationship. This episode looks at this topic and what we can do to avoid accidentally putting our relationship under threat.

Episode 142: Feeling Like You Are A Parent To Your Partner

What we can do to avoid patterns of unhealthy relating

There are a number of dysfunctional relating patterns that we can fall into over time in our romantic relationships. These patterns lower desire and build frustration and resentment.

Some examples of adults falling into a parent to child style of relating are the Peter Pan and Wendy Syndrome and/or what's known as paying your partner's mummy or daddy bill.

I want a partner who meets all my needs without me having to do much. I want a partner that heals all the wounding of my childhood. I want someone to look after me so that I don't have to be burdened by the job.

Choosing to become part of a couple means that whilst you hold onto a healthy sense of separateness, you also agree to contribute to the ‘us’ and togetherness side of the relationship. This means compromise and willingly shouldering some responsibility.

This episode looks at some of the parent/child like rut that we can fall into and the way it can erode healthy vibrant adult to adult relating.

Episode 138: Intimate Relationship With No Intimacy

Prioritising intimacy for emotional nourishment

At first, it's as if we can't get enough of one another. Can't spend enough time together, can listen to our partner speak for hours, crave their touch and attention. However, the allure of our cherished one and their mutual fascination on us starts to drop away with the demands of life.

If we aren't mindful we start to have less and less moments where we feel seen, known and heard by our partner. Eventually, we can be in a relationship and yet feel alone.

This episode looks at the importance of continuing to make intimate exchange a priority in a world of multiple demands so that our relationship remains a place of ongoing love and emotional nourishment.

Episode 134: Keeping The Standards Up In Relationship

The importance of standards in supporting long term relationships

I don't know about anyone else, but the fairy tales that I heard as a child tended to promise that after the initial barriers to love were beaten, it was happy ever after! I thought all you had to do was find your soul mate and the rest would be easy! 

The reality is somewhat different and it turns out that if you want your relationship to continue to be meaningful, some expectations of effort need to be still met.

When a couple hasn't had discussions about expectations and standards in a relationship that are measurable, it is easy to lose our way. Setting agreed-upon standards, committing to those standards and regular check-ins can really be vital to staying together in a meaningful way.

This episode explores the value of standards in supporting, long term healthy relating.

Episode 129: Money Conversations In Relationship

How to make money talks a source of joy rather than pain

Money issues are one of the largest points of friction for couples. This episode looks at some of the things that can be implemented to make money more a source of joy than pain in our relationships.

Couples can clash over a number of factors around money but one, in particular, is around its allocation and spending choices. Do we save or do we splash out on a holiday?

Being able to schedule consistent, open and focused discussions on money issues in your relationship without it ending in a massive blow-up is vital to long term relationship health and survival.

This episode looks at some of the areas that if attended to in advance can help to avoid emotion-fueled clashes.

Episode 125: Three Strikes & Out In Relationship

The importance of giving our partners a chance to course-correct

Have you ever experienced or know someone who has an abrupt end to a relationship you thought was going well? It may be because you had a couple of strikes against you but they weren't communicated.

In a business apart from a clear set of dos, don'ts and performance expectations, there is often some sort of warning or strikes system. If you transgress in such a way that your standing in the business has been impacted but not enough to be fired, you get a warning. A warning lets us know where we now stand and gives us an opportunity to course-correct. This is vital if we hope to remain in the business long term.

Sometimes in relationships, either ourselves or our partner wounds the relationship. The relationship takes a hit but not enough to end it. It is vital to communicate relationship strikes otherwise we don't get the chance to course-correct. Avoiding the conversation so as to not cause hurt is likely only to end in causing more hurt later.

This episode looks at the idea of relational strikes and how they can aid or destroy our relational success.

Episode 121: Empty Promises In Relationship

Why keeping promises is vital for relationship health

Sometimes we make vows or our partner does, to do better in the relationship going forward. Great sentiment but with no substance on exactly how that looks, time and time again we can be left feeling deflated as nothing actually changes! This leads to resentment which can be a relationship and passion killer.

When we agree to " what specifically "  trying harder looks like going forward then it is harder to be evasive.

This episode is a little shorter than others but the topic of committing to evidence of how you or your partner are actualising your relational promises is vitally important to the ongoing longevity and happiness of the relationship.